Exploring the darker side of night, the short-lived new Night Stalker series is now collected on DVD complete with unaired episodes, commentary, and deleted scenes. Okay, I’ll admit it. I really wanted to hate this series, but by the last episode the new series had grown on me.
A short Kolchak history lesson: The late, great Darren McGavin starred in a 1972 TV movie called the Night Stalker that was about an eccentric reporter tracking down a vampire in Las Vegas. The ratings for this show were huge for the time and a sequel was commissioned. The Night Strangler (1973) started killing women in the streets of Seattle with Kolchak in hot pursuit. Finally, Kolchak got his own series in the 1974-1975 season called Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Sadly, the ratings didn’t impress the suits and the series was cancelled after one season.
I love the original show because of two words - Darren McGavin. Don’t get me wrong, Stuart Townsend will not eclipse Darren McGavin, but he isn’t too bad an actor. Ironically, the best episodes were the four that never aired. They were also reminiscent of the original show (I’ll probably be kicked out of the Darren McGavin fan club for that line of support for Fauxchak [as some referred to this new series]).
Episode 2: The Five People You Meet in Hell: The typical American pastime, a little league baseball game, is marred when one of the player’s father sees a vision of his dead father, and then takes a bat and beats his wife to death. This murderous dad just also happens to be a well-respected prosecutor in the D.A.’s office. Sometime later a judge sees a vision of her dead daughter and knifes her husband to death. These people all have one thing in common; they put a cult leader, Damon Caylor (Tony Curran), in jail (where he was blinded by hot grease in a kitchen fight). What worries Kolchak is that Perri’s newspaper stories helped put Caylor in prison.
Perri, Jain, and Carl examine some photos
Episode 3: Three: A co-ed dies of her greatest fear, drowning. The problem is that there was no water in her lungs and the house she was found in has the trappings of some sort of ritual. Later they find out that she was being initiated into the Three Society (a secret society that only initiates three pledges per year) and that at the initiation you’re supposed to face your worst fear. Soon another initiate dies of his greatest fear and Kolchak thinks that an evil spirit is afoot.
Episode 4: Burning Man: The TerrorMaker was a homegrown terrorist who burned his victims with chemical “hellfire.” It’s the one-year anniversary of his death and new victims are alight and his signature wax figure is found at the scene of the crime. Kolchak and Perri have to consult the pompous Beacon reporter Howard Gorn (William Lucking – reminding me of James Coburn, which is never a bad thing) and the ex-FBI officer Doug Panero (Michael O’Keefe). Kolchak suspects supernatural forces (of course) while everyone else thinks it is a copycat killer.
Episode 5: Malum: Kolchak is being interrogated by a police officer (Tony Todd – using his Candyman voice to great effect). He appears to be trying to pin a crime on Kolchak. We learn, in flashback, that Kolchak was investigating a boy and his abusive father; however, all is not exactly what it seems.
Episode 6: The Source (Part 1 of 2): Kolchak is told by his mysterious source that if he finds a DEA agent that he can answer the questions about Kolchak’s dead wife. The problem is that the DEA agent is on the run from a group of shadowy bikers (no shades of Chopper here, fans of the original show will know what I’m talking about). Kolchak’s hunt of the agent is hindered when he’s told to give up his source or go to jail.
If you were a fan of the show to this point, here’s the part where you get really mad. Why? Because the show was cancelled and the second part of The Source was never aired, leaving you hanging with “to be continued.” Touchstone Television finally lets you know what’s going on by giving you the second half and three other episodes that never aired. The irony is that I thought that these were the best of the lot. The following descriptions are of the so called “bonus episodes.”
Episode 7: The Sea (Part 2 of 2): Perri and Kolchak are protecting the DEA agent’s wife from the phantom bikers. They appear to be immune to bullets (maybe the Chopper comparison wasn’t too off). Supernatural forces are afoot.
Episode 8: Into Night: Two office workers are working late but found mummified the next morning. Soon others are found in the same condition. I could see this one being from the McGavin era.
The tease for the two mummified office workers
Episode 9: Timeless: Young girls are being found with horrible facial mutilations and their brains eaten. There were similar cases in 1970 and they discover that these horrible events occur every 35 years. Character actor Stephen Tobolowsky guests as the fellow in charge of the newspaper morgue and does a great job. Again, reminded me of the McGavin era and shades of Night Strangler.
Episode 10: What’s the Frequency, Kolchak?: Kolchak has a reader that kidnaps him because he says that he’s sending him secret messages in newspaper stories. He takes him back to his creepy house, chains him up, and shows Carl a long hallway with a closed door at the end. The crazy says that the “old man” is in that room and is out to get our crazy friend. This episode I could see McGavin in and thought the creepy setup was very effective. This one is probably my favorite episode.
Like I said, I really wanted to stay true to Darren McGavin and hate this show. However, It’s somewhat obvious that Frank Spotnitz really had a love of Kolchak as well (he says so). The problem was that MCA/Universal owns the right to the old TV show and that he couldn’t “remake” the show if he wanted to (as he reveals in the second commentary).
He wanted to and would’ve even used characters from the show if the rights were available. ABC does have the rights to the first two TV movies (Night Stalker and Night Strangler) and he could use the characters from those (Kolchak and Vincenzo basically). It seems to me that ABC dictated some of the things I had a problem with in the show. ABC wanted the Kolchak wife back-story and moved around one of the episodes (Into Night, one of the better ones IMHO) because they thought it was a “monster” episode (there’s even a tease for it at the end of the pilot showing the mummified bodies).
One of the other things I didn’t care for is Vincenzo is like a father figure to Kolchak in this series, not to mention that Townsend is young enough to be his son. Kolchak and Vincenzo’s fights were the highlights of the old movies and series. The suits always make me mad when they “youthen” a series because they have an image that all shows should be geared towards 18 year olds. Why do they think this? I mean the suits are probably a bunch of old (meaning above 19 years old) people themselves.
Townsend will never replace McGavin, but he did grow on me as the series progressed (though I actively tried to forget that he was supposed to be playing Carl Kolchak). However, this Kolchak commits the unpardonable sin – he changes the story he’s writing about the Hellhounds to the more acceptable version. Kolchak in the old series would NEVER do this. In fact, those glorious fights with Vincenzo were usually because Tony was changing Kolchak’s stories. I got the impression in the old series that Kolchak’s stories never made it into the paper the way he wrote them.
Kolchak at a crime scene
The Night Stalker is presented in widescreen (1.78:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include two commentary tracks. The first commentary is on the Pilot with executive producer Frank Spotnitz, director Daniel Sackheim, and producer Michelle Maclaren. The second is on The Sea and is with Spotnitz, Sackheim, and producer John Peter Kousakis. Spotnitz does reveal secrets of where the show was heading on both of these commentary tracks.
Sadly, I wanted more commentaries. There were still too many unanswered questions (such as who/what was the old man and did this entity figure into Carl’s back-story, why were the hellhounds killing the babies, were the babies going to grow up to be Messiahs or some force for good?). There is also a 6 minute interview with Spotnitz. There are three deleted scenes.
The first runs over a minute and is a different version of the hellhound attack from the Pilot finale. Spotnitz mentions they reshot a lot of the finale on the Pilot commentary, but he makes it sound like a massive reshoot so I’m not sure if this is all of the original footage or just a different cut of what was reshot. You do get a better look at the hellhound.
Tony Vincenzo
The other two run about 4 minutes and were shot because of ABC removing Into Night as the second episode of the series to change the introduction of Kolchak’s source at the city morgue. DVD-ROM features include two printable scripts, “Ascendant” by Melissa Blake and Joy Beth Blake and “The M word” by Darin Morgan, which would’ve been the last two episodes of the season I think.
Keep repeating “that’s not the Carl Kolchak I know” and fans of the old series might make it through. Fans of Spotnitz’s work on the X-files, etc. will also enjoy this series. At least give it a chance and consider a rental.
Night Stalker – The Complete Series is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD’s database for more information. Also, check out our interview with Frank Spotnitz about the Night Stalker.
Jeff SwindollMay 30th, 2006 - 17:12:42
There are 3 tributes to the McGavin show in this series.
1. GGI of McGavin in the Pilot. This will come off as good or bad, depending on your thoughts on the new show. Plus it's not too good a CGI job IMHO. If you look closely you'll see that McGavin is putting a stake into a bag.
2. McGavin's iconic hat (I doubt the original) is haning on a hat rack in Townsend's home.
3. Townsends license plate : 197DMG2 1972 (when Night Stalker movie aired) Darren McGavin.
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